This is history taught by two men who know how to keep your attention. I couldn’t put this book down. It’s short but pithy chapters had me wanting to read just a little more before I had to dash off to attend to things more pressing. It reads like an action diary with the clock ticking ever faster and ever closer to each historical event. I felt my heart rate speed as I read about the final moments before Lincoln’s death. Bang!

The details of battles in the Civil War had me on the battlefields smelling the gunpowder and hearing the gallop of hooves, gunfire and bursts of shrapnel. The surrender of General Robert E. Lee (a hero of mine!) to Grant is painted in considerable detail.

The shooting of Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre by J. Wilkes Booth and the slow-death aftermath as the doctor tried his best to save him had me weeping.

Thanks Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugan for enlightening me with the details of this great man’s last days on earth.